


Baking is a Science: a Cookie Cutter fic

by Anonysquirrel (chibirisuchan)



Series: Runs in the Family [4]
Category: Captain America, The Avengers (2012), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Calm Down Erik, Charles Is a Darling, Cookies, Domestic, M/M, Mpreg, Tea, Tony is a troll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 00:05:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chibirisuchan/pseuds/Anonysquirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"You know, that rig's ludicrously inefficient. Primitive. You're using three different devices for the measuring and the cutting and the weighing," Tony pointed out, rubbing his chin. "If you're planning to be that anal about it anyway, what you really need is a laser-guided measuring system. Dimension, mass, and severance in the same step."</i>
</p>
<p>  <i>"Because a cookie guillotine is absurd overkill, but a cookie laser cutter is a brilliant use of appropriate technology?" Dr. Xavier asked drily.</i></p>
<p>  <i>"Exactly. Hang on, I bet I can adapt some of the suit's precision targeting systems--"</i></p>
<p><i>"No battle armour is allowed in the kitchen, Tony. The repulsors would simply </i>ruin<i> the floors."</i></p>
<p>After the events in Online Office Hours, Steve Rogers goes to Westchester to <strike>help Pepper ride herd on Tony</strike> have tea with his professor. Steve gets more of an education than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baking is a Science: a Cookie Cutter fic

**Author's Note:**

> This was very kindly posted by Takmarierah as part of the great [Cookie Cutter Fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/331441/) collection to celebrate AUs in fandom (thanks again, Tak!)
> 
> Since I'm going to be writing some fics that take place sequentially after this one, though, I need to repost it solo in order to make it possible to read the series in order and not get completely lost. XD
> 
> * * *
> 
> Warnings / alerts:  
> Mpreg  
> Early 20th century ideas of gender roles and gender identities (Steve, we love you but...)  
> Early 20th century ideas of reproductive education (specifically, a lack thereof)  
> Established relationships  
> Some family squabbles, but no violence beyond ankle kicks; familiar long-standing arguments and teasing  
> Diabetics beware: Way, wayyyy too much sugar  
> Tony Stark is probably his own warning label...  
> On to the fic!
> 
> * * *

All things considered, Steve was really glad when the Quinjet stopped moving. 

Even aside from his own lingering visceral dread of aircraft in general (which was only amplified by the Quinjet's disconcerting tendency to go straight down like a rock), it was really all he could do to keep from clutching desperately at the controls. 

Because Tony _hadn't_ been clutching at the controls. 

In fact, nobody had been paying any attention to the controls at all, which, combined with an airplane that dropped straight out of the air with no kind of runway anywhere in sight, just a tiny little helicopter pad that looked much too small from way too far in the air...

Well, Steve was just really, _really_ glad to be on the ground again.

Pepper and Tony took it all in stride, of course. As they walked down the ramp, Pepper was delivering something that sounded halfway between a status report and a lecture, and Tony was wheeling the suitcase armor behind himself and making the sorts of noises that really weren't as close as he thought they were to implying that he was paying attention when he really wasn't. 

He sometimes wondered if Tony actually thought he was fooling anybody, or if Tony just enjoyed how exasperation made Pepper bristle all over and snap her heels even more crisply onto the ground. Pepper was just as fierce as Peggy ...had been, and Steve kind of didn't want to know what would happen if someone handed an angry Pepper a handgun and pointed her at a target-shaped thing like, say, a vibranium shield or a glowing arc reactor in the middle of a big red metal suit.

Steve really hadn't known what to expect from Dr. Xavier and his home. 

He'd known that Dr. Xavier was said to be startlingly brilliant, and almost as absurdly rich as Tony was; the mansion seemed to bear that out, anyway. 

But apparently not all smart and rich people reacted to being smart and rich the same way Tony did. 

Granted, he hadn't met the man in person yet, but Dr. Xavier's on-lined classes and electrical-mails were so vividly warm and welcoming that Steve simply couldn't imagine the professor slamming doors in camera-wielding journalists' faces or buying restaurants just to be able to throw Justin Hammer out of them.

(Not that he actually blamed Tony for throwing Justin Hammer out of restaurants, after seeing how badly Mr. Hammer had behaved to the poor terrorized waitstaff. But he still couldn't imagine his polite-sounding, friendly-voiced professor doing something like that.)

And, of course, he knew that Dr. Xavier was in a delicate condition. 

Steve had never actually seen a lady in the family way during his own time. It had been a very private matter. A husband was expected to know that children would be coming, of course. But the particular details were always between women, who could advise a new mother-to-be in ways a husband couldn't, not unless he was also a doctor. Men just weren't supposed to know these things. It was a woman's mystery.

But the modern magazines and gossip columnists (at least, the ones that Pepper had to follow to try to perform Tony-related damage control) had been full of pictures of women wearing scandalously little clothing. 

Most of the time the writers either commented spitefully or speculated about family conditions (or both) whenever any woman gained a few pounds. Yet when a woman got to be startlingly round in the middle (and still wore just as few clothes as ever), the tone changed to delight and amusement and judgement about due dates rather than cheesecakes. 

Apparently that was what people looked like when they were advancing in the family way. 

Steve thought he was pretty well prepared for not staring at Dr. Xavier's middle too much; there'd been quite a few overweight generals strutting around in the army, and he knew better than to call attention to that. 

What he didn't know was what else he ought to do, or ought not to do.

None of the gossip articles were of any use in knowing how a 21st-century gentleman was _supposed_ to behave around a person in a delicate condition, because in Steve's experience, the newshounds seemed to specialize in talking and behaving in ways gentlemen _weren't_ supposed to behave. 

And there really hadn't been anyone he could ask for advice, either.

Asking _Tony_ for advice on _polite_ behavior... well, lots of modern people liked to tell Steve he was naive, but he sure wasn't _that_ naive.

For equally self-evident reasons, he wasn't about to ask Thor for advice on any kind of behavior that was intended to be restrained, dignified, and/or modern. 

Loki, on the other hand, would obviously have known how to blend in with modern behavior; his chameleon's gift of changing his form and nature went beyond the merely physical. It was part of what made him so difficult to track. But what Loki _knew_ and what Loki was willing to _honestly_ tell an Avenger were two very different things.

And he just hadn't been able to face trying to talk to Pepper or Natasha about such ...intimately feminine matters. 

He just couldn't be the sort of person who would go up to a proper, unmarried young lady and ask her questions about how to behave around a woman who was in a condition that declared she'd had sex. 

Because that would have implied that he thought she'd have some particular reason to _know_ how a man was supposed to behave with a woman who'd obviously had sex, and... 21st century or no, he just... couldn't.

(Jane would have been even worse. Jane was a scientist; he suspected she would have gone for a chalkboard and started drawing _diagrams_ and _flowcharts_ and things.)

So he quietly fell back and clung to the handle of his gift bag like a life preserver, letting Tony and Pepper's debate carry them ahead of him and through the mansion. 

It wasn't so much a failure of nerve as it was a tactical withdrawal. He'd have to watch Pepper and try to do his best to imitate her, because he was pretty sure whatever Tony did was going to be inimitable. In both senses of the word.

Somehow, Steve had kind of been expecting a scene out of a historical novel. He hadn't expected a country mansion to be all sleek steel and modern appliances like Tony's Manhattan building, of course. But he'd sort of expected a butler or a maid, lace tablecloths, flowers in a vase, delicate little teacups with gold tracing around the rim.

He hadn't expected a kitchen full of cookie trays on every horizontal surface, a tousle-haired young man in a distinctly rounded sweater-vest wearing medical gloves and wielding what looked like some kind of marble-and-steel microsaw-device, excited children waving around spoonfuls of jam chattering to a man in a Starkpad that was propped up against the edge of a thick book, and Tony and Pepper's complete lack of surprise at the situation.

The oven buzzer went off just as Steve was edging into the room, and he jumped. 

"All done!" one of the girls announced to the man in the Starkpad. She jumped down from her kitchen stool and dashed across the kitchen; the young man reached out and caught her shoulder quickly.

"Hot pads, darling! We can't all maneuver hot metal without touching it like Vati does." 

(And yes, that was his professor's voice, but surely this young fellow was _too_ young to be so highly educated already? How extraordinary. But then, from all Steve had gathered, clearly Dr. Xavier was unusual in a lot of ways.)

Tony grabbed the hot pads from the table and pulled the pair of cookie trays out onto cooling racks without missing a beat. Of course, Tony _was_ used to dealing with hot metal in his lab, even if not hot cookie trays exactly. The girls scampered over to examine their handiwork, exclaiming over the smell of warm freshly-baked cookies. 

Dr. Xavier stripped off the medical gloves and flashed them a rather frazzledly apologetic smile. 

"I'm so very sorry, I'd meant to have the tea on by now, but the stand mixer was already out, and I know we're past Purim but Erik's hamantaschen are the girls' favourite--"

"They're for Queen Esther," the little black girl said eagerly.

"Very good, Ororo!" Dr. Xavier said.

"Queen Esther was _awesome_ ," the little white girl said, giving Tony an oddly significant look. "She ripped the bad guy's ears off and everybody ate them!"

"Wanda, dear, that's not _quite_ how the story goes--"

"They made this big tall spike and they grabbed the bad guy and they--"

"--well, yes, I'm afraid that _is_ how the story goes. But let's not frighten poor Captain Rogers, my darlings."

"Sorry, Captain Rogers," Ororo said, chewing on a fingertip. 

"She ripped his ears off, huh? Tell me later," Tony whispered to Wanda, trying his usual flirtatious grin. 

(It might have won him better results if she'd been about a decade older. For such a little girl, she was giving Tony an _awfully_ suspicious glare.)

And right about then, Steve's plan to follow Pepper's lead completely fell apart. 

Pepper simply walked straight over and hugged Dr. Xavier, kissing his cheek. Like it was perfectly normal for a single lady to walk up to a married gentleman and just -- just _do_ things like that. 

But Dr. Xavier had returned her hug with perfectly unflustered happiness, so clearly it wasn't as forward as Steve had thought -- but still. He _couldn't_. 

And then Pepper stepped back a little, holding both of his hands as she looked him up and down with a soft smile.

"You look wonderful, Dr. Xavier. Happy and healthy and joyful. It's good to see you like this."

"Thank you, my dear; you're so very kind. How have you been?" With a teasing glance at Tony, he added, "That legendarily difficult employer of yours hasn't been making your life _too_ unpleasant, I hope?"

"Yes, well, I knew what I was in for when I signed the contract. And I do like getting my hazard pay in the form of designer heels."

"Excellent strategy, Miss Potts. Raven and Angel tell me Mr. Blahnik's latest line is particularly striking this year..."

"Hey, don't I get a hug too?" Tony pouted.

"Yes, of course. Come here, you." 

And Dr. Xavier held out his arms, as though it was perfectly normal for gentlemen to hug each other too -- or rather, as though it was perfectly normal for a married person to let _Tony_ get into hugging and therefore groping range, which, really, um.

Tony had put on his best lecher's grin, which was never a good sign.

" _Stark,_ " the man in the video pad barked, before Tony could swoop in. "Hands _above_ the table. Where I can see them." 

"Well, excuse me, Lehnsherr," Tony said, making a show of waving both empty hands in the air in front of the pad. "How come Pepper gets a pass and I don't?"

"Because Miss Potts doesn't make a sport of getting her hands all over other people's spouses and lovers," the man pointed out, demonstrating that clearly he already knew Tony.

"Don't worry, Vati, I'm on guard," Wanda declared. She crossed her arms, glaring at Tony like she expected him to start twirling his moustache like a villain at any moment.

"And I'm _very_ proud of you for protecting your much-too-trusting papa while I'm away," the man on the screen said, giving Tony a far more intimidating version of the little girl's glare.

"What'd I do now?" Tony asked, blinking. 

"There's this little thing mathematicians like to call statistical probability," the man in the video pad said, baring all his teeth in what Steve wasn't entirely sure he could technically call a smile. "You might have heard of it."

" _Gentlemen,"_ Dr. Xavier said, color rising in his cheeks; Steve wasn't quite sure whether it was from embarrassment or exasperation. "And ladies. Surely the hostilities can wait until we've finished our introductions, at the very least."

Neither Tony nor the man in the pad looked too sure about that, and Wanda was outright skeptical. 

Dr. Xavier pushed through the squabble with the application of equal parts charm and sheer bloody-minded stubbornness, walking over to Steve and taking his hand between both of his own with a particularly determined-looking smile.

"Captain Rogers, it's such a pleasure to finally meet you in person. Thank you for indulging me on such short notice. Charles Xavier, at your service; do feel free to call me Charles." 

"Or Charlie," Tony pointed out helpfully.

"-- _Not_ Charlie, if you please. And goodness, such lovely warm hands; have you ever tried baking? I should think you'd have quite the knack for it."

Steve shook his professor's hand with awkward care, still overcautious of his own serum-enhanced strength. 

"Not really? Um. And it's no trouble, Dr. Xavier. I mean Charles, sir. I mean, uh. Is this okay?" he asked, gentling his grasp even further, thinking of eggshells and easily-bruised fruit and the professor's particularly delicate state of health.

"Perfectly all right, Captain," Dr. Xavier said, patting Steve's hand with an indulgent sparkle in his eyes. "Now, you've met our girls, Wanda and Ororo. And on the video link from Washington is my dear, darling, _extremely overprotective_ husband, Erik Lehnsherr. I'm afraid the technology isn't quite up to transmitting handshakes yet, though--"

"Yeah, yeah. Give me a couple years," Tony said idly, still studying Wanda's grumpy little scowl in complete bewilderment -- as though it were utterly inconceivable that any member of the female persuasion might not be susceptible to his charms.

"It's an honor, Captain Rogers," the fierce-looking man inside the screen said, with no hint of irony. "I wish that I could be there to shake your hand myself."

"Which means that you'll simply have to come back for tea more often, Captain," Dr. Xavier told Steve brightly, putting an arm through the crook of his elbow and smiling up at him without a trace of Tony's self-consciousness about the difference in their height. "Do bring your shield some time? I'm certain Erik would _love_ it. He has a particular affinity for metals." 

"Am I supposed to put on makeup before I talk to the camera too?" Steve asked Dr. Xavier quietly.

He'd thought that men generally didn't wear makeup, even in the 21st century. But then, Tony hadn't been at all surprised when they'd both been pinned down by makeup-wielding people before the Avengers went in front of television cameras last week. And the Starkpad video device was kind of something like a television and a camera both. 

And Dr. Xavier's lips were so stunningly red. Maybe he wore makeup like a lady might because he didn't consider himself _just_ a man? He made no secret of his joy in his childing, which was another thing that ladies did, but not usually gentlemen. And his features really were striking, with those brilliant blue eyes and vivid lips; he had a fascinatingly complicated face that made Steve's fingers itch for a pencil and sketchpad to try to understand how that double-crease at the corner of his lips affected the way his smiles worked...

...and Dr. Xavier's shoulders were inching up towards his ears. 

Then Steve remembered what else Tony had told him about his professor: that he was awfully good at reading people's minds. 

(If Dr. Xavier was as good at reading minds as Pepper was, that must have meant he was really, _really_ good at it.)

"No, Captain, you don't need makeup to talk into the webcam," Pepper assured him, with her lips twitching. "And don't get me started on the irony in the genes that gave Dr. Xavier that complexion for free, when women pay a lot of money for looks like his."

Ororo said, "Papa's been biting his lips a lot, that's all." 

Wanda grumbled, "Papa's all upset because Mr. Tony thinks he'll _burn all the cookies."_

"Wanda, dear, that was meant to be our little secret," Dr. Xavier said, looking everywhere except at the video pad.

"Jesus, _that's_ the problem?" Tony said, laughing a little despite himself. "Wanda, honey, I was just teasing him."

"Papa's not supposed to get upset!" she insisted, stamping her foot. "Vati put me in charge of making sure Papa stays nice and quiet and _safe_ , and I'm not supposed to let Papa get upset! I promised!"

"Oh, sweetheart," Dr. Xavier said, wistful and gentle. 

"Liebchen, that's not what I meant," Erik said from behind the screen, reaching helplessly toward them, his fingers bumping against the glass.

"But I said I'd take care of Papa for you. I _promised_."

A bit unsteady from his added girth, Dr. Xavier awkwardly folded himself down and knelt on the floor with a small sound of discomfort, and then he gathered her into his arms and hugged her close. 

"It's quite all right, darling," he told her, cupping his hand to her cheek. "You're doing marvellously well. You haven't disappointed Vati at all." 

"But you got upset, and you wouldn't let me stop you," Wanda insisted, petulant, her bottom lip sticking out.

"No, my dear, I got creative," Dr. Xavier said, tweaking the tip of her nose with a smile. "If I couldn't manage to control a predictable thermally-induced chemical reaction in a dozen units of material of precisely the same mass and dimensions? _Then_ I might have gotten a bit upset." 

Wanda had the most eloquently skeptical little face Steve had ever seen. Dr. Xavier winced a little and tried harder.

"I grant that the material in question is a bit unpredictably heterogeneous, what with the difference in the thermodynamic coefficients between dough and chocolate chips," he told her earnestly. "But luckily for me, I _am_ both a genius and a scientist, and I'm quite confident I've controlled the variations within an acceptable margin of error." 

"Perfectly acceptable," Pepper said, popping a piece of still-warm cookie into her mouth and licking melted chocolate delicately from her fingertips. "These are marvelous, Doctor."

"Thank you kindly, Miss Potts. You see, darling? It's all sorted, it truly is." 

"It is not," Tony said grumpily. "I haven't gotten any hugs yet."

" _I'm_ not going to hug him," Wanda declared, just as grumpily as Tony, but then she had the excuse of being six.

"Wanda, dear, it was all just a bit of a mix-up--"

"Don't care. Vati told me to be on guard. I'm _on guard._ "

"Erik," Dr. Xavier said with an odd note in his voice. "If you wouldn't mind addressing this?"

"That's my good girl," Erik said through the screen, with that grin full of teeth. 

Dr. Xavier sighed, rubbing his temples: "Yes, dear, that would be _precisely_ what I was afraid you might say."

"No hugs at all?" Tony asked, with the most mournful big brown eyes Steve had ever seen on anything that wasn't a basset hound.

"Of course you can have a hug, Tony, don't be absurd. Lend us a hand up, then."

Tony took Dr. Xavier's hand and made a show of loudly smooching the back of it, which brightened that delicate blush in the professor's cheeks -- and also produced a startling growl from the direction of the video pad.

Steve winced a little, already knowing this wasn't going to end well.

It wasn't that he'd thought Tony was particularly attracted to men, _per se._

(Of course, he probably wouldn't have said Tony was particularly attracted to women either, not with the way he treated most of them.)

However, Tony _was_ undeniably attracted to things like bad ideas, dangerous ideas, bad _and_ dangerous ideas, other people's spouses and partners, potentially-explosive experiments with not-yet-predicted results, high technology, and the adrenaline rush of running and/or fighting for his life.

Well. And alcohol, of course. But Dr. Xavier wasn't likely to be alcoholic on contact. The rest of Tony's attraction-points, though... no, this wasn't going to end well at all.

But Steve couldn't think of a way to intercede that didn't involve throwing Tony over his shoulder and running. 

Grabbing Tony and running away would stop the problem in its tracks, of course. But it would be horrendously rude to Dr. Xavier, because they hadn't even had their tea yet, and he'd invited them expressly for tea. And Steve hadn't found a chance to give Dr. Xavier his baby gift yet either, and... well. 

Really, the best Steve could figure was that if he was doomed no matter what, the least he could do would be to be _politely_ doomed. Which had to be better than impolitely doomed, just on principle. But he was still almost afraid to watch.

As soon as Tony had helped Dr. Xavier back to his feet, he flashed a particularly wicked grin at the man in the video pad. 

Then he swung the poor startled professor into a _Gone with the Wind_ -style romantic dip despite a yelp of protest, and started making extravagant kissing noises all over the professor's pinked cheeks.

Dr. Xavier thumped an indignant hand into Tony's shoulder and pushed at him like an overgrown and overenthusiastic mutt. 

"Tony-- _mmph_ \-- Tony, _down_.Off. Sit. I said _sit_. Bad Tony! _Down,_ boy."

"Let Papa go, you big jerk!" Wanda said, and kicked Tony in the shin. 

It might have been more effective if she'd been wearing shoes, rather than her little white ankle socks with tiny pink bows. So might her attempt at stomping on his toes, which barely creased the leather of his handmade Italian wingtips.

Tony blinked down at her.

"She thinks I'm a _big_ jerk," he said happily, thrilled to be taken for a tall person, even if it needed a six-year-old to do so. "Good girl, Wanda!" 

He ruffled her hair as she gaped up at him, then took Dr. Xavier's hand off his shoulder and kissed the back of it again.

_"Stark,"_ Erik snapped, leaning so close to the screen that his nose was almost touching the glass. "Need I remind you that I can _crush_ you like an empty soda can?"

Of all things, that was what got Tony's attention. He swung Dr. Xavier back upright, steadying him with an affectionate arm about his waist, and looked loftily down at the man in the pad.

"A _soda can?_ Show some respect, Lehnsherr. I'd never be caught dead as a _soda_ can." 

"Tony, not to interrupt, but I believe the salient point would be--"

"With the amount of alcohol my liver's soaked up? I'm totally a beer can, and you know it," Tony scoffed. "A _soda can_. Gah. Who actually drinks that stuff without whiskey?"

"--Excuse me--" 

"Only an American would think anyone could put _beer_ into a _can_ and pretend it was still fit for human consumption," Erik scoffed right back. "Canned beer, canned spam, _Gott im Himmel_ \--"

The oven timer buzzed again.

"--Miss Potts, if I might prevail--"

"On it," Pepper said, already slipping her hands into the mitts and reaching for the oven door.

"Can we bake Queen Esther's cookies next?" Ororo asked hopefully.

" _Ears,_ " Wanda announced, glaring up at Tony's. "Bad people get their ears _torn off and ate._ "

"-- _eaten_ , darling, not _ate,_ and really the moral of the story is--"

"Hah. Charlie, Charlie, you know better than to talk at me about _morals,_ " Tony put in, wearing the wolf's grin as he ran insinuating hands down Dr. Xavier's sides and over his hips just to make Erik growl louder.

"--blast it all, can we not take _three seconds_ out of the squabbling to note that I have in fact _NOT_ burned the bloody biscuits?!" Dr. Xaver snapped.

Everyone stopped to look at him.

"Thank you," he added stiffly, very much on his dignity, and moved back to what he'd been doing with that piece of notched marble and the pivot-mounted jeweler's saw and the wax-papered roll of frozen cookie dough. 

He pulled another pair of medical gloves onto his hands and pushed the roll along the marble until the cut edge aligned with a piece of black electrical tape, then took the handle of the saw and started carefully cutting.

"What the hell is that, a cheese-board miter-saw cookie-guillotine?" Tony asked, staring.

"I am a _scientist,_ " Dr. Xavier said crisply, shoulders squared and head high. "And any scientist worth the name knows that if every unit of dough is the same mass and the same thickness, then they will all bake for the same amount of time. Freezing the dough makes the cutting more precise since there's less of a difference in density between the chips and the frozen carrier mass. The inevitable differences in conduction and convection nearer to the edges of the tray also fall within an acceptable margin of error, and--"

"And you made a _cookie guillotine,_ " Tony said, halfway between amazement and horror.

"Obviously." Transferring his cookie slice onto the scale for weighing, Dr. Xavier added, "Don't ask me why you lot insist it must be chocolate _chips_ rather than properly integrated and homogenised chocolate. Both the precalculations and the spreading coefficient would be much more predictable if the dough were of a single consistent texture -- or even if the integrated bits were solids like dried fruit, rather than a material that _partially_ liquefies under heat -- but I do my best with the frankly absurd prerequisites I've been given, and--"

"I love you," Erik said from the video screen, grinning. "I love you beyond all reason, you ridiculous man."

"Thank you, darling. And you must know that I love you just as dearly. But I shall continue to firmly insist that there is _nothing ridiculous about the scientific method."_

He transferred the cookie to the parchment-lined tray and inched the frozen dough log along the marble again, squinting to line up the cut edge precisely.

Tony leaned over to inspect the system, peering over a sweater-vest-clad shoulder and patting Dr. Xavier's hip absentmindedly.

"You know, that rig's ludicrously inefficient. Primitive. You're using three different devices for the measuring and the cutting and the weighing," he pointed out, rubbing his chin. "If you're planning to be that anal about it anyway, what you _really_ need is a laser-guided measuring system. Dimension, mass, and severance in the same step."

"Because a cookie guillotine is absurd overkill, but a cookie laser cutter is a brilliant use of appropriate technology?" Dr. Xavier asked drily.

"Exactly. Hang on, I bet I can adapt some of the suit's precision targeting systems--"

" _No battle armour is allowed in the kitchen,_ Tony. The repulsors would simply _ruin_ the floors." He set thin metal rings around the edges of the dough slices on the tray, and Tony scrubbed his free hand over his face.

"Crumpet rings? _Seriously?_ "

"If the dough mass spreads unevenly in the oven, both the surface area and the thickness become unpredictable toward the edges, which means the chances of uneven edges burning will rise in correspondence with--"

"Charles. Nobody on this continent bakes chocolate chip cookies in _frozen crumpetized ring-slabs_. In fact, I'll bet you nobody on this _planet_ bakes chocolate chip cookies in frozen crumpetized ring-slabs."

"I beg your pardon. The children's cartoons are positively _dripping_ with adverts of chocolate chip dough sold in frozen tubes--"

"--and normal people just gob it out with spoons--"

"--hence their difficulty in controlling the mass and thickness and keeping the bloody things from burning!"

"Charlie, buddy, most ordinary human beings know the meaning of _ballpark._ It's one of those American baseball things. I can go find you a dictionary if you need remedial help."

"Like you have _any_ room to lecture me about ordinariness. You know just as well as I that we're both _completely rubbish_ at trying to impersonate either the mean _or_ the median of any given range--"

Anxiously, Steve leaned closer to Pepper and asked, "Should we not have come? Do they always start fighting like this?"

Pepper blinked up at him. "Fighting? Captain, they're having a ball."

"...Oh." 

"Yep. Don't worry, I know it's hard to tell the difference sometimes." Pepper broke off another bite of cookie, and hummed her appreciation of the still-melty chocolate.

Watching Dr. Xavier indignantly waving a spatula around and Tony scoffing aloud at the cheese-board miter-saw rig, Steve asked her carefully, "How do we know when they're _actually_ fighting?"

"They get quiet. Sulky. They go putter around in their labs a lot. --It's much more restful when they're fighting, actually," Pepper admitted, ruefully amused.

"Oh, gosh. Well, I guess not fighting is better... isn't it?" 

Tony took the spatula from Dr. Xavier, and tried to hold it over his head. If he'd been Steve's height, it might have worked better. But Dr. Xavier was only about an inch shorter than Tony to begin with, and he lunged for it, bouncing on his toes and grabbing handfuls of Tony's shirtsleeve and pulling until Tony flailed.

"You cheeky little brat, you never did have any respect for your elders," Tony grouched, giving back the spatula before Dr. Xavier could unbalance himself too far, steadying him with careful hands even as he put on his best corporate-raider-type disapproving-boss face. "You don't see _me_ pissing all over my friends--"

"-- _I was SEVEN MONTHS OLD, you bloody pillock!_ Are you _ever_ going to let me live that down?!"

"Nope, not a chance," Tony informed him loftily, with a grin cracking the severity of the boss-face.

"You oughtn't be permitted to hold a youthful indiscretion over a person when the youth in question was less than a year old! I _insist_ upon a statute of limitations here!" Dr. Xavier protested, red-cheeked and breathless with outrage. "I can scarcely gloat over events I cannot even _remember_ , and it is profoundly unfair of you to behave as though I _were_ gloating at you--"

"Are you _sure_ they're not fighting?" Steve whispered.

"Positive." Pepper looked up at him with a crooked smile. "Have you ever tried to walk more than one puppy at a time, Captain? You do get used to the yapping and the gnawing and the ruckus. ...Eventually."

"If you say so, ma'am."

After a moment's consideration, she leaned over and advised, "Also, try to keep your good shoes in the back of the closet."

"I heard that," Tony protested.

Ororo tugged on Steve's sleeve; surprised, he knelt down to be closer to her height. 

"Can you reach the teapot?" she asked. "Let's take Vati and have some tea before the cookies get cold." 

"Papa and Mr. Tony will probably keep picking on each other for a while," Wanda added. "Vati says boys are just dumb like that sometimes." 

"They are, huh?" Steve asked, hoping he wasn't grinning too much; he didn't want to sting the little girls' pride. "What about me, then?"

"You're not a boy, you're a gentleman," Ororo informed him graciously. "Papa is usually a gentleman, too. Except sometimes he forgets, when he gets all excited."

"Mr. Tony isn't a gentleman pretty much _ever_ , though," Wanda said, hands on her hips, doing her best exasperated-Pepper impression, and Ororo nodded solemn agreement.

Steve bit his lip to keep from laughing. Barely in grade school, and already the girls had Tony pegged? The legendary lady-killer was losing his touch.

"Oi. I'm getting maligned here," Tony said, with his arms looped around Dr. Xavier's waist. "Have you been telling your kids awful things about me?"

"I haven't needed to," Dr. Xavier retorted crisply. "They're sensible girls with perfectly good observational skills."

"What about you in there, hmm?" Tony asked of Dr. Xavier's rounded middle, dropping to one knee and pressing his ear to the great curve to listen for an answer. "Are you susceptible to being bribed or flattered yet? Or both. Actually, I'm good at both."

"Not to mention modest," Dr. Xavier pointed out in exasperation, smoothing Tony's ruffled hair with a hand clearly well trained by years of tousle-headed children.

"Modest and smart and handsome. Can't forget those either. Oh, and ludicrously rich. Hey, little buddy, you listening in there?"

Tony lifted a hand to rap his knuckles against Dr. Xavier's distended belly; Steve lunged across the room and grabbed his wrist sharply.

"Tony, _don't!_ " 

Steve didn't know much about babies, but he _did_ know about internal bleeding. If Tony went and cracked Dr. Xavier's eggshell before the baby was ready to be born--

"My _eggshell?_ " Dr. Xavier asked, staring up at him with very wide blue eyes. "My dear Captain, what on earth--? ...oh. _Oh._ Of course; genetics are almost mathematical microcosms of life, but no one's ever properly taught you the larger scale, have they? We'd all have assumed that a high school education -- a _modern_ high school education -- would have included... oh, _dear._ "

"Eggshells, Cap?" Tony asked, with a peculiar expression on his face. He wasn't even trying to free his wrist, which meant he knew how serious Steve had been. "Steve. Buddy. What exactly did your old army pals tell you about how babies get made?"

"Tony, _please,_ " Steve groaned, pulling back and scrubbing both hands over his face. "Not in front of the ladies!"

"No wonder you were so very anxious about the delicacy of my condition," Dr. Xavier said, faintly. "Good heavens."

"Baby birds have got eggshells, but not baby people, right, Papa?" Ororo said thoughtfully, chewing on a fingertip. "I could go get the baby storybook from the little-books room." 

"Do you want Papa to read you the baby story, Mr. Steve?" Wanda asked.

"Oh, my G-... gosh," Steve said, face buried in both hands. "Oh, gosh. Um. No, thank you."

"But Papa's really good at reading stories. He does the best voices," Ororo said.

"I'm sure he does, honey, but," Steve said wretchedly. "Uh. No. Please. Not in front of Miss Pepper."

With an evil glint in his eye, Tony opened his mouth. 

Tony hadn't gotten any farther than "Why don't--" before Dr. Xavier had his palm over his mouth and had started talking very loudly just in case.

"Miss Potts, you know where the reading room is, yes? Why don't you and the girls start laying out the Noritake tea set, and Mr. Tony and Mr. Steve and I will bring the biscuits just as soon as they're cool enough to handle."

"Please don't leave me here with Tony," Steve blurted out, clutching at Pepper's sleeve for a minute before he got control of himself again and let her go, brushing imaginary lint off her arm awkwardly. "It's just. I mean. I know he's going to laugh at me."

"Damn straight."

"Now, Anthony, I'm sure we can _all_ be _polite and supportive,_ " Dr. Xavier stressed _._ " _Can't_ we."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I can't," Tony said, considering. "I mean, _eggshells,_ for God's sake."

"I'm not _stupid,_ " Steve said, a little upset.

"Of course you're not!" Dr. Xavier told him, swift and fierce in his defense. "You're really quite brilliant; I _know_ that. I can feel that in you. And you've been very differently educated, through no fault of anyone's. And, Mr. Stark, I am confident that _every last one of us_ is capable of ten minutes of humane and compassionate civility."

"Have you ever tried timing him?" Pepper asked, in mild disbelief.

"Five minutes," Dr. Xavier corrected himself, with dogged determination. "Perhaps three."

" _Eggshells,_ " Tony said, with the sort of unholy glee Steve had last heard him use when teasing Dr. Xavier about things the poor man had done when he was seven months old.

"...Miss Potts, I fear I must defer to your own vastly greater expertise in this matter," Dr. Xavier said, visibly drooping.

"Of course, Dr. Xavier. Don't worry. I'll take it from here."

Three sharp strides later, Pepper had grabbed Tony by the ear and his suit jacket by the collar and was dragging his rump across the smooth floor as he scrambled to get his feet under himself, yelping. 

"Ow-ow-owww-owshitow-dammitPepper--!"

"Come along, Tony. We'll need your help in reaching the tea set down from those high shelves, after all."

" _My_ help?" Tony scoffed, trotting along hunched over to keep his ear attached to his head. "You know damn well you're half a foot taller than me in those heels--"

"Pull his ears off so we can bake 'em, Miss Pepper!"

"Our houseguests are _not to be maimed,_ Wanda!" Dr. Xavier called after them a bit desperately, rubbing his temples with a pained hand, and then turning to Steve with a sigh.

"Charles," Erik said from the video pad, "I can't believe _I'm_ the one saying this to _you,_ but please be gentle."

"I know, love. I'll try my best."

Steve wondered if it was too late to put his baby gift into Dr. Xavier's hands and run.  
\-----2-----  
"I am quite dreadfully sorry," Dr. Xavier said, taking Steve's hands between his own. "I ought never have said that aloud, not within Tony's earshot anyway. I was just -- quite startled, which is a very poor excuse. But may I ask how you came to think that I contained an eggshell?" 

"I'm not stupid," Steve said again, feeling his face burn with embarrassment. "I just... um. Everybody talks about 'the birds and the bees' -- I mean, gents are the bees, right, with the stingers? And you mustn't, er, 'sting' anyone unless you've married her. So, I mean, I guessed that if the gents were the bees... um..."

"Then that made the ladies the birds?" Dr. Xavier said, smiling up at him gently. "And birds have eggs."

"Um. Yeah. I mean, that's just what I figured. But it was never any of my business to go around guessing at things like that; I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude--"

"You aren't being rude in the slightest, Captain. Actually, if you'd pardon me for a moment..." He crossed the room and opened a closet door, burrowing around inside.

" _Gently,_ Charles," Erik warned from the video pad. "No diagrams."

"Yes, darling."

"If you get out the whiteboard I'm calling Pepper. Or Azazel. Or both."

"Yes, of course, love." 

"I _mean_ it, Charles. You're past your quota. You're not allowed to mortify any more national heroes."

"I beg your pardon, when was the last time I--? Oh wait, never mind, I'd forgotten about Mr. Kent. Still. Where did I put that -- _aha._ "

Dr. Xavier reemerged from the cloest with a battered leather satchel; he set it on one of the kitchen stools and opened it up, then made a sound of satisfaction as he produced a stethoscope from inside.

Settling on the edge of the table and leaning back a bit -- it made his roundness that much more prominent, and Steve tried hard not to let his eyes wander -- Dr. Xavier put the stethoscope's buds into his ears and pressed the bell to his fullest place. Then he moved his hand a bit to the right, a bit up, a bit forward again.

"Just the basics, Charles," Erik said, tiredly affectionate. "You have two minutes, and then I'm calling Pepper."

"I suppose I oughtn't ask Miss Potts to manage Tony by herself for much longer than that anyway," Dr. Xavier said ruefully, gliding the stethoscope's bell downward and to one side. 

"Clock's ticking."

"Well. Just the bare essentials, then. You were correct in your supposition that both women and birds can create eggs, Captain; it's just that a woman's egg is many thousands of times smaller to begin with, and there isn't a shell."

"But then how can you keep the baby safe?" Steve asked quietly.

"That's what I'm for," Erik said, arms crossed.

"Yes, darling," Dr. Xavier said, patting the video pad affectionately. "That's also why the baby floats within the womb; the amniotic fluid provides a remarkably effective cushion. Actually, some studies have indicated that--"

"Ninety seconds."

"Oh, _bother._ \--Might I borrow your hand, Captain?"

Steve took a careful breath, steadied himself, and gave his hand to his cheerfully terrifying young professor. 

"Such warm hands," Dr. Xavier said happily, as he curved Steve's palm against his roundest place. "Really, do give a thought to baking; I've found it quite a soothing hobby to cultivate, myself."

His middle felt startlingly snug and firm for how very round he was. Steve had expected him to be softer, but he felt ...ripe, like a peach, a hint of softness at the surface but full within.

"Quite heavily ripe, yes," Dr. Xavier admitted, following Steve's thoughts with a rueful smile. "I've only a few weeks left to incubate, as it were. Therefore, if I were to form a shell, I should certainly have done so by now, don't you think?" 

"...I think maybe I oughtn't speculate about things like that, sir?"

" _Oughtn't speculate?_ Nonsense! Scientific curiosity is the foundation of new discoveries!" 

"I'm sorry, sir--"

"Don't apologise, my friend, _investigate._ Here. Test your hypothesis. If Tony's playing-about were able to have cracked a shell within me, then the hypothetical shell ought to be tangible from the surface, to be vulnerable to such impacts. So--" 

And he proceeded to push Steve's fingertips into his roundness _much too hard._

" _Doctor!_ " Steve yelped, pulling his hand back.

"I'm fine, Captain; I assure you my obstetrician gets _much_ more pushy with the ultrasound transducer on a regular basis. No harm done," Dr. Xavier said, with that bright mad smile, like his own body was a convenient teaching aid and/or hands-on experimental prototype. "And no shells either, you see? Just a lovely snug waterbed of sorts. No shells at all."

"Uh. Yes, sir. No shells," Steve repeated, feeling a bit like he'd been walloped with a cheerily pastel-painted two-by-four. 

"Therefore, I am clearly _not at all_ as fragile as you'd been mistakenly led to believe, yes?" 

"... _Um_." Steve was pretty sure Erik wouldn't have agreed to that, anyway. 

"And _therefore_ , my dear Captain, I promise you that you can stop fretting so desperately," Dr. Xavier said, beaming at him like a high-powered searchlight aimed at a hunted fugitive.

It was the same voice he'd used to try to declare Tony capable of three minutes of civility. As though the unrelenting force of his own shiningly absolute determination might somehow compel the world to comply to his wishes through sheer baffled swept-along-ness.

"Gee," Steve said, blinking down at the most terrifyingly polite small-gentleman-shaped battle tank he'd ever encountered. He had to wonder whether combat-oriented applications of high society manners had ever been regulated by the Geneva Convention.

"Really, there's no need to fuss so. I'm feeling quite perfectly fine, Captain. I am as healthy as a horse, and as sturdy," Dr. Xavier said. "And quite nearly as round."

According to Steve's own internal time-clock, though, there was at least another thirty seconds before Erik was going to step in. And Dr. Xavier was still doing something with that stethoscope.

"Yes, I was hoping I might -- ah, _there._ " 

Dr. Xavier took a deep breath and held it, then pulled the earpieces free and held them out to Steve. His mind's voice was bright and clear and excited. 

_Here, my friend. It's truly a wonder. Only I can't hold my breath like this for too very long, and once I shift--_

Steve's hands weren't quite steady as he put the earpieces into his ears. 

There was a hollow rushing sound, like a distant ocean or a seashell, and a deep soft pulse, and -- another, faster and higher.

_That's the baby's heartbeat,_ Dr. Xavier told him gently, _and the echo of the oldest sea, still cradling each of us within our mothers' wombs. Of course I am technically a bit out of the ordinary, as a mutant; but you would have sounded much the same to your own mother._

_I'm sure she loved to feel you moving inside her, just as I have with mine. I'm really quite glad we've no eggshells, to be honest. I do so dearly treasure being able to hear them, and feel them, and touch them. This little one kicks whenever Erik tickles along the side of--_

Steve didn't quite realize that his knees had given out until he hit the floor.

" _Charles,_ " Erik groaned. "What did I tell you?"

"Oh, dear God, are you all right? Please don't pass out," Dr. Xavier begged, clutching at the edge of the table as he bent as far as he could manage toward Steve. "Head between your knees, there's a good chap. Deep breaths. Deep _slow_ breaths. In. Out. In." 

"...sorry. Sorry. Forgot. How to breathe. Um."

"I'll go fetch you a glass of water, shall I, and a nice cool cloth?" Dr. Xavier hurried across the kitchen and turned on the faucet. "Do keep breathing, nice and slow -- there, that's right. I'm so terribly sorry. Director Fury is going to shout at me for _days_."

"Sorry," Steve wheezed. "Just. There's someone else _alive inside you._ You can feel it _moving._ Oh my _God._ "

"Perhaps I ought to have left you thinking of eggshells after all," Dr. Xavier fretted, wringing the cloth between his hands.

"And _everyone's_ mother does this?" Steve asked, more plaintively than he meant. "How can you? Being responsible for someone's whole _life,_ every single day, every _minute_ \-- if you ever made a mistake-- how can you _stand_ it?"

Dr. Xavier eased himself into a chair beside him and bent to press the waterglass into Steve's hands, folding the wet cloth against the back of his neck and rubbing his shoulders. 

"I'm certain you'd do just splendidly," he said, with far more confidence than Steve had. "Of course, for you it's rather an academic question anyway. But, honestly, to me this is the easiest part. I always know just where my baby is. I never have to wonder where they've wandered off to, or who might be teasing them, or whether they're dangling off the jungle gym when no one's there to catch. Or whether they'll take it into their heads to save the world someday, which is almost never a safe and practical and ordinary thing to do; I'm sure you have quite personal insight into the hazards of world-saving, don't you, Captain? Really, truly, this _is_ the easier part."

"Oh, God." Steve rubbed the cold cloth over his face, and blinked up at Dr. Xavier woozily. "Begging your pardon, Doctor, but what idiot decided women were the weaker sex?"

"That's a distressingly good question."

"Two minutes, and you had Captain America hyperventilating," Erik said through the screen, in an oddly wondering despair. "Less than two minutes, even. I think that's a new record even for you, Charles."

"I didn't _mean_ to break him," Dr. Xavier protested, squirming. "I just thought... um. I do that too much, don't I."

"Thinking? Or breaking people?" Steve asked.

"Yes, exactly," Erik said. 

Shamefaced, Dr. Xavier said, "Thinking. Erik always tells me that's where all my worst ideas come from."

"Well, yeah, I guess that kind of makes sense," Steve admitted. "But it's where your best ideas come from too, obviously. So it's a win in the end, isn't it?"

"Thank you, Captain. It's terribly kind of you, to think that my good ideas would have to be more numerous than my bad ones. Particularly under the present circumstances." He offered a small, wan smile. "I probably ought to have taken you out to the farm and introduced you to the chicks and the lambs first, yes? Actually, I ought simply to have let Ororo bring down the baby book."

"Oh, gosh, no, sir. I mean, no offense, but I don't think I could handle getting instructions on how babies are made from a six year old."

"...You're right again, of course. I'm sorry."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Steve said, scratching the back of his neck and looking away. "I just wasn't quite expecting... um. Making somebody's whole _life_ inside you is kind of intense." 

Incongruously, the oven timer buzzed again. With a wobbly little laugh, Dr. Xavier pushed himself to his feet and surveyed the countertop in search of an empty place to put the last trays.

"I know I've got a crazy fast metabolism, Dr. Xavier, sir, but this really is an awful lot of cookies," Steve said, trying hard to change the subject. 

Dr. Xavier clutched at the new topic like a lifeline, chattering away like a record played at a too-high speed.

"Do call me Charles, my friend. And I'm not quite certain yet whether it will be an excess or an insufficiency? I mean, we have nine children, four of whom are teenaged boys, and sometimes there's Hank's chess club, and sometimes Alex's basketball team, and Darwin's theater club, and parties just tend to _materialise_ in the vicinity of Sean and Angel; I'm rather suspicious that there's something outside the ordinary laws of physics going on there." With a self-deprecatingly rueful glance over at the video pad, he added, "Not that I've _ever_ had _any_ tendency at all to get carried away with projects, of course." 

"Of course not," Erik said, indulgent. "Completely unthinkable."

"But then, by comparison with Tony's level of mad-eyed productivity, anyone else looks like a dilettante," Dr. Xavier said. "On the other hand, I don't know that I care to gauge a target by a relative distance from Tony's position, because that's a continually migrating goal, isn't it? Nobody can keep him still for the duration of a board meeting, let alone long enough to mathematically measure and develop a comparative sanity-of-current-productivity-level algorithm from. And the two of us do seem to go overboard in entirely different directions. He does it with machines and implausibly high technology and inadvisable romantic liaisons; I do it with children and cookies and genomic research." 

"And educational concepts, and homemade chemistry labs," Erik added helpfully, grinning with all his teeth. "And books to read and papers to write and journal articles to edit, and dear God, don't get me started on the children's science fair projects--"

"There is no such thing as _carried away_ with a science fair project." 

Erik just _looked_ at him through the video pad.

"Anyway, if the teens don't descend like ravening locusts after their sports and clubs and such, I don't suppose we might persuade you to take some of these back to Manhattan with you?" Dr. Xavier asked. "We weren't sure whether Thor might be coming with you to visit, and I did want to be certain I was adequately supplied for an onslaught of teenagers _and_ Thor. That is to say, Ororo quite especially hoped Thor might be coming to visit with you. She rather fancies him, you see..."

"Fancies him?" Steve asked.

Dr. Xavier crooked his brows together, double-translating first into American and then into historic. "She's carrying a torch? Although certainly not in the literal sense, not with all the books--"

"Oh. She's got a crush, huh? That's kind of adorable. I'll have to tell him he's got a little admirer."

Erik tapped on the screen. "Charles, how quickly can you get those hamantaschen onto a plate?"

"Hmm?"

"Wanda's been sketching on the other Starkpad. I think she might still be a little too fixated on the ears thing."

"And Tony is congenitally incapable of not-teasing anyone, so distractions are a sensible precaution," Dr. Xavier said, scooping up the spatula and prodding gingerly at the hot pastries. "Did you lock the drawer with the letter opener in it?"

"She's figured out how to tweak the tumblers with the point of a mechanical pencil."

"Blast. Darling, as dearly as I love you and all your marvelous and varied talents, I rather hope this next one _doesn't_ inherit your engineer's fascination with taking things apart." 

Then he glanced up from the tray, and flashed a sudden wild grin at Steve. 

"There, you see? Didn't I tell you that the pregnancy was the easier part? When they're safely contained, and there's a physical limit on how much chaos that particular child can create -- far, _far_ easier all round."

"Oh God," Steve said feelingly. "I'm _never_ going to get married."

Dr. Xavier dropped the spatula. 

"What? Good Lord, no, that's not at all what I meant you to take away from this!" he stammered. "If nothing else, you'd be perfectly safe marrying most men. Any man who wasn't like me, that is. But I have it on excellent authority, including my own, that I'm quite the genetic anomaly, and -- and besides, even if you fancy women instead, there are appliances and preventatives and even surgeries if you wish to be completely certain and -- Captain, you certainly don't need to _not_ get married if you decide that I've now terrorised you off the thought of children at all, although I must tell you I'd be completely wrecked if--"

"Charles," Erik said. "Charles, I love you with all my heart. You know this. Also, you know that thing that happens when your mouth keeps moving, and things fall out of it? You might want to ease back on that for a little while."

"I don't _mean_ to be terrible," Dr. Xavier said, completely devastated.

" _Hey_ ," Steve said, and his reflexes were reacting long before his conscious thought kicked in, because suddenly he was hugging Dr. Xavier like it was somehow okay to go around hugging other people's husbands.

(Well, Pepper did it too. So it couldn't be _too_ awfully rude. Better to hug other people's husbands like Pepper did than like Tony did, in any case.) 

And Dr. Xavier was just the right size for Steve to tuck him under his arm and tilt his head against his chest and hold onto him until the poor man stopped looking like ten miles of cold wet road.

"Hey," he said again, nudging a fingertip under Dr. Xavier's chin and angling to try to catch his eyes. "Cut that out. You're not terrible at all."

"Captain, you are a truly good and gracious person," he murmured. "And I'm really not, for all that I try so hard to pretend to manners--"

"--Horsefeathers."

Dr. Xavier stared up at him, startled, and then delighted.

"Did you actually just say 'horsefeathers'?"

Feeling his cheeks burn, Steve told him, "I meant that that's a load of malarkey, sir."

" _Horsefeathers,"_ Dr. Xavier said, marvelling. "Horsefeathers and malarkey. How absolutely charming."

"The _point_ is, sir, you're not bad or rude or anything like that! You're just -- enthusiastic?" Steve tried. "The world's this big fascinating place with so many things to learn, and you're a scientist. You love discovering things the way I love drawing things. And you're so generous with your knowledge; you want to share what you know with everybody. And that's _not bad_. Loving to teach isn't bad at all."

"But nattering on until one's overwhelmed guests panic _is_ rather frowned upon," he pointed out, looking away. 

"Sir, you're absolutely brilliant," Steve told him, utterly sincere. "You've got an amazing mind, and you soak up incredible amounts of knowledge like a sponge. And then you have, like, gallons of information in your mind, and you talk to these thirsty students needing knowledge, and you'll pour out everything you know for us whenever we ask, and then give us tea and cookies too. But we haven't all got minds that can take in all that information all at once. My brain-teacup's just too full to hold any more new things right now, sir."

"I'm sorry, Captain. It's a shamefully poor host who drowns his guest in tea."

" _Don't_ apologize," Steve insisted. "Look, it's not your fault I've got so much to relearn right now. It doesn't change how much you have to give, or how precious and valuable your knowledge is. I just need to drain the teacup in my head first. Okay?"

"Thank you for your kindness, Captain." Dr. Xavier offered him a crooked, charmingly wry smile. "And I have heard it hypothesised that tea becomes much more pleasant to drink in the company of biscuits. --I mean cookies."

"That sounds like a good theory to me," Steve agreed.

"Oh, no, no, _no,_ " Dr. Xavier said, wagging a finger. " _Theories_ have already been proven. _Hypotheses_ , on the other hand, require rigourous and extensive testing. Also independent peer review, and quite a few journal articles. And then years of protracted debate, involving yet more extensive testing under a variety of conditions. You see?"

"Oh, yeah, right," Steve said, grinning. "Definitely still a hypothesis. Off to the lab!"

"That's the spirit!"

"Oh, God, it's contagious," Erik said through the video pad, grinning fondly at them both. 

Which was approximately when Steve realized he was _still_ hugging someone else's husband, and let go and stepped back hastily.

"I'm sorry, sir!" he yelped. "I didn't mean to be fresh -- it's just -- you seemed to need a hug. And you're really huggable, but I shouldn't have just--"

"Don't worry, Captain, you're doing just fine," Dr. Xavier said, smiling. "As I am an enthusiastic collector of hugs, it's lovely to be deemed huggable."

"Very huggable," Erik agreed, touching the video screen a bit wistfully. "I can't wait to come home."

"Nor can I," Dr. Xavier agreed. "It's so very odd, to hear you and see you but not to feel your mind. --Yes, I know, to everyone else that's normal; I suppose it's a good lesson in appreciating others' perspectives."

"It's odd to me too," Erik admitted. "Seeing you, and not being able to hold you."

" _That's_ what I must ask Tony to invent!" Dr. Xavier said, enthused. "Hug-o-vision! It'd be brilliant! Oh -- and of course the same technology would also have magnificent potential for applications in reach-o-vision for the vertically challenged; I expect he'd appreciate that as much as I would! Just a moment--" And he pulled the Starkpad around, opened a little window, and started texting Tony.

Steve bit his lip to try to keep his face politely straight. Erik didn't bother, laughing from the safety of the other side of the video screen.

"I'm serious!" Dr. Xavier protested, grabbing up the spatula and gesturing emphatically. "I can't use this thing to go after the serving tray; the porcelain would slide straight off. Reach-o-vision would be _marvelous."_

"Can I help?" Steve squeaked through his teeth, because if he stopped biting his lip he was going to start laughing, and Dr. Xavier was armed and feisty.

"'Armed and feisty?' Well, I do like that better than armed and dangerous. You are quite the national treasure, aren't you," Dr. Xavier told him. "Brave, gallant, _and_ conveniently tall! And you say things like _horsefeathers_ ; how thoroughly delightful. Top shelf on the left, thanks ever so."

Steve remembered from Peggy that tea was serious business, of course. But he hadn't really gotten a chance to experience the full to-do in military camps. 

Even aside from the cookies, there was milk and sugar cubes and tiny lemon wedges and four different sets of silver tongs (one for the sugar, another for the lemon, and two more for the cookies). And each type of cookie got arranged on its plate in tidy rings, and Dr. Xavier carefully wiped up the streaks of chocolate from the still-melty chocolate-chip cookies before he would set the plates on the tray. 

Steve tried to insist on carrying the tray of stuff once it all got assembled, but then ran into Dr. Xavier's near-superhuman levels of stubbornness. He only managed to divert him with the idea that the professor ought to carry his own husband over the threshold and it would be rude for someone else to step in for a tradition like that. 

Fortunately, Dr. Xavier was absolutely enchanted with that idea. Erik surrendered without too much grumbling, because there wasn't much he could actually do to stop his husband from carrying him over the threshold from several hundred miles away. Steve scooped up the handle of his gift bag with a spare finger, and followed Dr. Xavier through the twists and turns of the mansion.

The first thing that struck Steve about the reading room was the lack of blood, thank goodness. The second was all the books. But clearly Wanda had somehow been distracted from her quest.

_Quite glad really,_ Dr. Xavier agreed lightly. _I'm sure that as artists' inspirations go, Mr. Van Dyck's beard suits Tony much more than Mr. Van Gogh's ears._

Ororo and Pepper were talking about the weather with a great deal more enthusiasm than most people used when talking about the weather. Pepper was musing aloud about whether terascale arc reactor power output might make Stark Industries technology a viable source of rain management systems in flood or drought-prone areas, and Ororo was sketching on Pepper's Starkpad and enthusing about the differences in her rain-feelings between stratocumulus and cumulonimbus clouds.

Tony had _finally_ struck upon a successful method of charming Wanda. The two of them were both sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of a tangled pile of electronic bits, and Tony had pulled the miniaturized toolkit out of the secret niche in the heels of his shoes. Wanda was picking the laser innards out of an optical mouse, and Tony had a green plastic board between his teeth and was fusing some wires to another board with a cold-soldering iron.

The startled expression on Dr. Xavier's face was a little worrying, when Steve remembered that Dr. Xavier could tell what it was they were thinking.

"Cookies?" Steve offered quickly, holding the tray out.

"Yes, please!" Ororo said happily, even as Tony and Wanda whined in near-unison.

"Five more minutes?" 

"We've almost got it!"

"It will take a couple minutes for the tea to brew," Pepper pointed out, smiling in a way that looked _amused_ , but not entirely _safe_. 

"All right!" Tony and Wanda high-fived each other, and went back to gutting their electronics.

Steve set the tray of cookies down beside Pepper and Ororo, and Dr. Xavier propped Erik up so that he could watch what Tony and Wanda were doing, then moved to putter about with the teapot and an electric kettle in the corner. 

Given the look on his face earlier, Steve couldn't help wondering if Dr. Xavier was trying to keep his baby out of a particular blast radius, and whether they ought to try to get the ladies behind something big and sturdy like the desk over there, if Wanda would agree to go.

_Oh, it's probably not explosive,_ Dr. Xavier told him, with a thread of anxiety still twining through his words. _It's just that, um. It's a sonic screwdriver. That is to say, Wanda wants to make a sonic screwdriver, and Tony is... well... Tony. I can't decipher what he's on about when he starts thinking in microchip schematics._

_Sonic, huh? So it'll be loud?_

_Probably not? Not unless she turns it up. I mean, I'm sure there will be lights and noises and laser beams and whatnot. It's what else it might do that I'm not quite sure of really. Dr. Who has a great deal to answer for._

_Is he like Dr. Strange? Unless he's a she, I mean; I know there are lady doctors like Dr. Foster now, I shouldn't have assumed._

_I'm ...really not certain how to begin answering that,_ Dr. Xavier said, amused. _The first dilemma is which of him one means to compare. He_ has _always been a him so far, except for the time that he was a she, but only very briefly, and there is the inevitable argument over the nature of canonicity -- well, never mind; we've decades of television to cover there._

He set the teapot down next to Pepper and Ororo and settled himself carefully into the couch next to Steve, smiling at the way Erik had his nose nearly pressed to the pad to watch what Tony and Wanda were building. 

The bright-colored paper in the gift bag rustled between them, and Steve rubbed his fingertips together and looked around the room until Pepper nudged his ankle with the point of her toe.

"Go on," she said, indulgent. "The professor doesn't bite."

"Um. Right. --Thank you for inviting us into your home and baking all those cookies and everything," Steve said, and held out the bag a bit sheepishly. Ororo leaned over and tugged lightly at the paper-fluffs, curious.

"I will accept this time, because I know how much it means to you to be allowed to give it," Dr. Xavier assured him. "But I do insist that the pleasure of your company is more than gift enough. Next time, bring your shield for Erik to exclaim over, and we'll call that the hosting gift, all right?" 

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Thank _you,_ Captain." 

If he'd picked up what the bag contained from Steve's memories, he did a marvelous job of pretending to be surprised anyway. He held the tiny yellow bear-pajamas up to the video pad for Erik to see, exclaiming over how soft the fabric was, and the little teddy-eared hood.

"I can't take any credit, sir," Steve said uncomfortably. "Miss Pepper told me everything. What sizes to look for, and how it should be put together to make diapers easier, and all of that."

"You chose it yourself," Pepper contradicted, with a stubbornly sweet smile. "I simply suggested a range."

"Well, then, I thank you both," Dr. Xavier said contentedly.

Ororo took the little garment and smoothed it against her papa's curving, tilting her head back and forth. 

"Miss Pepper, are you sure it's going to fit?"

"Pardon me, but I'm not _that_ fat, darling." 

" _You're_ not fat, Papa," Ororo agreed, "but the _baby's_ getting really big."

"I'm sure it'll be just fine," Pepper assured all three of them with a grin. "Trust me; I know clothes."

From the crazed-inventors end of the table, the brilliant scarlet lance of a laser beam and some kind of noise Steve could only label as "high tech" was followed by whoops of glee. Tony and Wanda gave each other a high-five. 

Pepper and Dr. Xavier traded a rueful look.

"I don't think either of them will need any extra sugar for a while," Pepper said.

"Still, it's only polite to offer. It's the principle of the thing. Besides, when you contemplate the amount of sugar already in the cookies..."

"We're doomed," she agreed with a sigh. "Well, Captain, how about you? One lump or two?"

"Er, I don't know?"

Dr. Xavier gave him one of those assessing looks, like he was reading something off the inside of Steve's head, or maybe his taste buds. Then he reached over for the tongs and started working delicate tea-chemistry in a cup: one sugar, no lemon, just a few drops of milk.

A minute later, Steve had a teacup and saucer in one hand and another saucer with cookies in the other. It was a fancy-looking set with intricate red-brown designs and gold tracing at the rim of the cup. 

He took a sip; the tea was just at the pleasant side of hot, a little sweet but not overwhelmingly so. He'd never had milk in tea before, but it was kind of ...nice. Kind of gentle, somehow.

Steve felt like he could finally start to relax a little. The situation was settling into something that kind of resembled what he'd been preparing himself for. 

...Though admittedly with fewer lace doilies and more laser beams than he'd anticipated.

Wanda zapped her teacup with her screwdriver, and Dr. Xavier went rigid next to him, clutching at Steve's arm. 

After a couple seconds of processing, it beeped, and she announced, "336 degrees Kelvin!"

Dr. Xavier sagged against Steve's shoulder, limp with relief: "Oh thank God, nothing's got holes in."

"Don't thank God, that was an act of me," Tony said smugly. "Thank you, thank you; you may commence with the worship."

"Hush, you, or I shan't tell you where I keep Father's scotch."

Tony _looked_ at Dr. Xavier, and Steve didn't have to read minds to know that he was loudly thinking something along the lines of _hey, don't taunt me like that, because I could totally still go put a laser cutter in that thing._

Dr. Xavier winced, rubbing at his temples gingerly. "Yes, yes, I heard, point taken." 

More young voices were coming down the hallway, accompanied by quick and eager footsteps.

"Papa said the reading room, Alex. You know, the one with the books--"

"--they _all_ have books--"

"--and the tea--"

"--they _all_ have tea!"

"Uh. The one with the brown striped chairs?"

"Never mind, I can smell the cookies from here. _Cooooookies._ "

Two tall teenagers came in, one of them dark-haired and the other pale blond. Grinning, the blond one took a couple steps toward the coffee table, making grabby hands in the air.

"Perfect timing, boys, the tea's still hot," Dr. Xavier said happily, already putting together more plates. "Hank, you know everyone, of course, but Alex, I'd like to introduce you to--"

The blond boy had flailed a couple steps back and was clutching at the dark-haired boy's arm.

"Oh my God. Hank, that's _Tony Stark_."

"Well, obviously," Hank said, mystified. "It's fantastic to see you again, Mr. Stark -- could I ask how you're progressing with that piezoelectric sensor mesh you were telling me about?"

"Oh baby, you know I love it when you talk geeky to me," Tony said, grinning. 

Alex bristled all over, stepping in front of Hank and glaring like a wet cat.

"Hands off, horndog, Hank's _my_ genius dork boyfriend. Go get your own."

"Oh _dear,_ " Dr. Xavier said, looking back and forth between them. "Gentlemen--"

Alex wasn't listening; he'd whirled around and was whispering frantically under his breath. Steve couldn't help overhearing, with what the serum had done to enhance all his senses.

"Okay, Hank, you know the list of all the things you didn't tell me about but I would've liked to know? New line item. You _didn't tell me about Tony fucking Stark randomly showing up for tea and cookies!_ "

Hank pulled out his phone and began tapping notes into the surface. 

"So we're up to item forty-seven, I think? That sounds about right. Actually, I'm more surprised by Captain America; Mr. Stark's never brought him before..."

Alex staggered against Hank, shooting a frantically alarmed look over his shoulder at Steve. 

Steve waved a little, sheepishly.

"...that's Captain America? --You're letting me make a babbling idiot of myself in front of _Captain America?_ Oh _God._ "

"Items forty-seven _and_ forty-eight, then?" Hank asked, with an almost-straight face, but there was the faintest twitch of a grin tugging at the corner of his lips.

_"Hank!_ " Alex said in a somehow half-whispered shout, sounding like he was on the verge of hyperventilating. 

Steve was moving before he quite realized what his knees were doing with him.

"It's not a big deal, really. Please call me Steve," he said, holding his hand out and trying his best to look harmless and friendly and not-legendary at all. "And the two of you are?"

"Uh," Alex said, and gulped hard, staring at Steve's hand. "We're fanboys. Definitely. Er, have you heard of fanboys?"

It was a good thing Tony was still sitting on the floor; he cracked up, laughing so hard he probably would have fallen off the furniture. Alex was too distracted even to glare at him (which Steve had already guessed meant that Alex was significantly distracted).

"He means we think you're pretty, er, swell," Hank said, a little fidgety himself, shaking Steve's hand with careful respect. "I think that was the term for it, sir?"

"Well, er, yes, but no? Yes, that's the word, but -- I meant, you're both part of Dr. Xavier's family, right?"

Alex blushed just as fiercely as Steve could, the poor kid. Being so pale did have occasional disadvantages. 

"Oh yeah, right," the boy stuttered. "I mean, Hank definitely is, he's been theirs forever. I'm still the new kid on the block. He's Hank, and I'm Alex? Only Charles said that already, heh. Sorry. I'm kind of an idiot sometimes. Most of the time, actually, if you're used to hanging out with geniuses like Hank and Charles and Stark over there, and oh God, Hank, _please_ make me shut up now."

"Um. How should I do that, exactly?"

"Alex?" Ororo held out a cookie helpfully.

" _Thank you,_ 'Ro, you're _awesome,_ " he said, and shoved the cookie into his mouth, still looking wild-eyed as he chewed.

Tony was still laughing; Wanda was catching the giggles too, watching a theoretically grown-up person sitting on the floor next to her and laughing like a kid.

A bit anxious, Dr. Xavier offered, "Tea, Alex? A cup often helps to settle one's nerves."

Still covering his mouth, Alex nodded, chewing like mad. 

Dr. Xavier poured him a cup and added a sugar cube but no milk; Alex flashed him a thumbs up and drained half of it at one go, then half-collapsed onto the sofa next to Ororo and scrubbed a hand over his face. 

She leaned into him and patted his arm gently; he put a hand over hers.

"Sorry," he said, staring fixedly at the table with that brilliant blush still staining his cheeks. "Just. Whenever I think I'm done finding all the surprises around here..."

"Trust me, I know _that_ feeling," Steve said fervently, and Alex looked up at him.

"God, yeah. You totally would. Sorry, sir."

"Hey, it's okay," Steve said, taking a couple steps closer and offering his hand. "Want to try this again?"

This time Alex reached out and took his hand, and shook it carefully. "It's ...kind of unbelievably awesome to meet you, sir."

"Thanks, Alex," Steve said. "It's pretty swell meeting you too."

"Hey, kid," Tony put in, with a wicked-looking grin. "You're the one who taught Charles about emoticons?"

"Uh... sort of?"

Tony chuckled. "'Sort of' is about the best anybody could ask. Here, catch." He tossed Alex a phone, and added, "I owe you for the laughs alone." 

Alex caught it out of the air and stared at it, stuck somewhere halfway between awe and outrage.

"How very peculiar," Dr. Xavier said, with one eyebrow twitching. "I find myself compelled _both_ to thank you for your gift _and_ to berate you for the implication that I am incapable of ever becoming sufficiently 'with it' to achieve proficiency in current electronic idiom."

"And my point is made for me," Tony said grandly. 

Dr. Xavier made a gesture with two fingers. Steve wasn't quite sure what it was meant to imply, but he suspected it wasn't very polite.

"Hank," Wanda whispered loudly. "Hank, Mr. Tony and me made a sonic screwdriver! Look!" And she shot lasers all over Hank's plate of cookies. "12 cubic centimeters!"

"That's great, Wanda!" Hank said earnestly, admiring it when she held it out to him. "What have you got in there, an integrated circuit sensor and some thermocouples? And an optical laser, obviously, hmm..."

Steve glanced over at Dr. Xavier, a little confused. "That's not what it measured last time?"

"It's a multitasker, like all the best tools," Tony said proudly, rubbing the laugh-tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand, then turning that dangerously high-voltage grin on Alex. "Don't worry, kid, I don't need to poach your genius boyfriend. I'm the genius boyfriend myself. I just can't help being the smartest person in any room I walk into."

"Wow, you really _are_ that big an asshole in real life," Alex said, sounding oddly impressed.

" _Alex,"_ Hank and Dr. Xavier groaned in unison, even as Tony started laughing again.

"What? I'm serious! I didn't know that was even possible!"

The video pad's image of Erik was wobbling a little bit, shaking with its holder's hand. He had the other hand over his mouth, but the crinkles around the edges of his eyes spoke of enthusiastic laughter; he must have muted the sound from his end. 

Letters showed up on the screen: _Kid's got a point there._

"What can I say?" Tony shrugged. "It's not easy being the eighth marvel of the modern world, but somehow I manage."

Alex gave Steve an incredulous look. "And you hang out with this jerk? I mean, at least Miss Potts gets paid to put up with his crap."

"He really is a good guy," Steve said, a bit awkwardly. "He just really, _really_ hates admitting it, that's all."

Tony clutched at his chest dramatically. "Lies, all lies!"

"He's Captain America, asshole. I don't think he _can_ lie," Alex shot back. "Look, Charles really hates it when I have to try to throw jerks out on their asses, so can you please shut up and drink your tea and play nice for ten minutes?"

"Me? Play nice? You going to let your kid get away with that, Charlie?"

"It has been suggested that tea and sweets will sweeten dispositions as well," Dr. Xavier said, not at all subtly, with a plate in each hand. "Here. Eat. _Both of you._ "

"Sorry, Charles," Alex murmured, looking away.

"I need an actual drink," Tony complained, and then yelped when Pepper nudged him in the back with a pointed toe. "Right, right. Sorry, Charlie. --But you _said_ there was scotch."

"Why yes, after dinner, of course. I should hardly serve my guests scotch with _tea_."

With a droll glance in Tony's direction, Pepper started, "How inconvenient that we have an investor's meeting scheduled at--"

"We're totally staying for dinner," Tony cut in, hands folded behind his head. "That's why God invented telecommuting."

"If you don't mind staying, that is?" Dr. Xavier asked Steve earnestly.

"If _he_ doesn't mind? Who do you think has the keys to that jet out there?"

"Tony, you and Miss Potts understood what you were in for," Dr. Xavier said. "I know we're not what the Captain expected. We're not very ...tranquil. Which is also to say that we're all a bit mad. I personally find it a delight, but then I'm well accustomed to it already." 

He was clearly more anxious than he wanted to let on; his hands were making incoherent little gestures in the air. 

"If you're finding that we're a bit too much to bear -- if you need to drain your teacup again, so to speak--"

"Oh, gosh. Don't be sorry," Steve said, catching Dr. Xavier's hands and holding them still. "I _like_ it here."

Dr. Xavier's eyes were really astoundingly blue, and he looked so desperately hopeful. 

"Really?" he asked, as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing even though he could hear it in his mind just as well.

Steve realized, much, _much_ too late, that even though Dr. Xavier was a _professor,_ and therefore automatically to be respected and looked up to, he was just a fraction of Steve's own time-age. He must have grown up on stories of Captain America too. 

For all that Steve had been fretting about making a good impression on the brilliant young professor in a delicate state of health, Dr. Xavier must have been fretting about making a good impression on Captain America the national hero in just the same way. No wonder he'd been trying so very hard, with the cookies and the eggshells and everything.

Dr. Xavier winced. 

_I'm sorry,_ he said, a little frantic. _I didn't mean to let you realize that. You've lived through far too much pressure from others' expectations in your life; I would never have wanted my own silly insecurities to add to your burden in any way--_

_Do I need to mention the horsefeathers again?_ Steve told him. _You're not silly, and you're not a burden._

_Spoken by a man who doesn't know how very much I weigh just now,_ he replied irreverently. _It's just -- I'd wanted so very badly to give you a pure, free space to settle yourself, to rest without the pressure of that spotlight for a little while. Only I'm afraid we're just not terribly restful sometimes._

"I told you you'd do just fine," Erik said from the video pad. "You're always charming, love, and the kids are adorable. Even when they're smashing century-old antiques."

"Perhaps especially then; some of those Edwardian figurines were just horrid," Dr. Xavier admitted with a shaky laugh. "But you must admit you are horribly biased on our behalf, darling." 

"Just because I'm biased doesn't mean I'm not right," Erik said, flashing a grin with a lot of teeth. 

"Statistically speaking, the introduction of bias into a data set--"

"--still doesn't mean I'm not right." Erik tapped on his screen lightly. "Well, Captain. You've survived tea, cookies, and reproductive biology 101 so far. Are you up for dinner with the Mad Hatter and crew?"

"The mad professor, more like," Dr. Xavier corrected. "I look silly in hats, unless that was your point. Really, Tony's much better suited to hats; I think it's something to do with the beard... _anyway._ Dinner. You really wouldn't mind?"

On the other side of the table, Tony had tweaked the screwdriver again and Wanda was zapping another cup of tea. 

"Two degrees brix? What's a brix?" she asked.

Hank pushed up his glasses. "It's a measurement of the percentage of sucrose -- sugar -- in a water solution. Pass me the pad and I'll show you the science."

"I don't want to do _science,_ I want to _zap things!"_

"But you're zapping things _with science!"_ Tony said, waving both hands.

"Dinner sounds great," Steve told Dr. Xavier, smiling. "I'm looking forward to it."


End file.
